2006: Professor for Medieval History and Historical Auxiliary Sceinces at the University of Vienna

Academic functions

1993-98: Member of the Steering Committee of the European Science Foundation (ESF) programme ‘Transformation of the Roman World’ (TRW) and team leader of theme group 1 ‘Imperium, gentes et regna’

Corresponding Editor of the journals ‘Early Medieval Europe’ (1991), ‘Millennium’ (2003), ‘Journal of Late Antiquity’ (2007) and of ‘Brill Studies in the Early Middle Ages’ (2003)

Member of Programming Comittee of the International Medieval Congress Leeds (1996), of the Scientific Board of CMS (Centre for Medieval Studies) at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague (1998), of the Komission für die Herausgabe der Regesta Imperii of the Academy of Sciences in Mainz (2002), of the Historische Kommission (2002), Kommission für Migrationsforschung (2006), Kirchenväterkommission, Numismatische Kommission, Kommission für Schrift- und Buchwesen des Mittelalters of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2008)

The history of the human sense of belonging to a group of other humans, esp. the sentiments of ethnicity and its impact on medieval society. Early Medieval History, esp. the History of the Italian Peninsula and the Lombard kingdom. The History of the so-called Migration Era. The role of steppe empires in medieval Europe. The role of Christianity in Medieval Europe.